The Cowboy and Vampire

by Clark Hays

Chapter 16

  "I don't have any money. " The cabbie was looking at me with open hostility. He started to shout.

  "You crazy bitch, then what the hell did you get in my cab for? I'm gonna run you straight to the police station is what I'm going to do, you rotten rich bitch. That designer dress probably cost two grand and you tell me you can't pay for a lousy cab ride?

  Crack is an expensive hobby, you bitch. "

  My eyes burned into him and the heat scorched us both. He froze, mouth open. "I don't have any money. They took it. They took everything," I said quietly.

  "Go on," he stammered, "get out, get out of my cab, what are you some kind of witch or something? You got the evil eye. Get out, get out," he yelled, slamming the cab in gear and screeching away from the curb even before I could shut the back door.

  The church loomed over me, imposing in the dark, and my body trembled. Sanctuary was within, a place I could think, hide.

  Can't go home, can't go anywhere I've been, I thought. They would find me. I had to collect my thoughts, figure out what to do.

  Call the police or somebody, anybody, to help me.

  It was locked. Shit! Of course, why wouldn't it be? This was Manhattan, even God locked his doors. Oh God, why won't you let me in, I silently implored. What was I supposed to do now? I felt so faint, so scared, I knew I wouldn't be able to go on much longer. I had just escaped from the craziest people in the world, I had survived, I was alive, but now was to be undone by a locked door.

  No, a voice screamed inside me, the same voice that had reverberated during the turning. Do not embrace defeat Exert your will. The will is the power. Tentatively, my hand reached out to the heavy door, grabbing the handle. Inside my mind, I visualized the lock buried within, watched it turning, resisting as I pushed it with my thoughts, squeezing a slow, steady pressure on the oiled but reluctant parts. It clicked and I pulled the door open and entered the church. My church.

  The silence of the empty church felt quieter than what I imagined it would be like inside a coffin. Yet, it felt comfortable. I hadn't been here for years, but it was something familiar. If only I were still that little girl coming here with Mother.

  Halfway down the darkened aisle, I lay down in between two pews. No one could see me there, and I thought it might help to be still for a minute or two, long enough to figure out what to do next. Maybe then I could search the catacombs below, the place Mother used to tell me about in bedtime stories, a place she always said would be perfect for hide and seek.

  The marble floor was cold against my cheek. I was so cold in this dress. My mind slipped back to the cabin where Tucker and I had last made love, and the passion we had shared. Tucker, where was he? I could only hope he was still alive. Queen of the Vampires, it was absurd. Tomorrow, I would stand fully in the sun, proving Julius to be a foolish old man.

  I knew that to even see tomorrow, I first had to move, to get rid of this coldness, this stiffness that was in my limbs. I stood, stretching my arms toward the moon visible through the skylights. Beneath the chill, my body felt foreign, like the movements belonged to someone else. Elita. The movements were like hers, sensuous and without thought. I stretched even higher, hoping to somehow feel like myself, but a new sensation broke free. I could feel liquid power surging from my fingertips, crackling and twisting. Before I could even comprehend it, the sensation began to change. Suddenly, I could see it, and pure light began to stream from inside me. Overwhelmed, I fought against it but in that instant, I could see inside myself from the light, just like I had seen the mechanism of the lock. Nothing was hidden, no aspect of my life was locked away, all was open. Everything I had been, everything I had ever wanted to be, everything I would never be was all displayed, illuminated by the light. I was there in the church, but not there at all. I was inside the light and outside, connected to the air, the stone of the church, the clouds, and on into the blackness of space.

  The glaring noise of the light gave way to the rhythmic rise and fall of voices, the words echoing inside my dizzied mind. I could hear them, as if they were part of me, stretching from the past, and beyond into the future. We are glad, they said. We come to you through the light. Nothing is outside of you. The light is you. We mean no harm, we will protect you. Leave your body here, enter our world by the light of your fingers. Come with us now. Fly, fly through the stars, through the ether of human souls, taste their pains, their lusts, their sicknesses, insanities, and love. Feel the futility of human life, understand its power, the power of God. See dead souls struggling to leave the underworld, touch the fire of a new soul burning itself into the flesh of an infant. Understand all of humanity inside your flesh, not with your mind or heart.

  As suddenly as it began, it was over. With a lurch, I was sucked back inside my body, with a violence and pain that were almost unbearable. I fell back to the floor, unsure how much time had passed. Minutes, hours? A fire burned inside my veins, raging and trapped by the constraints of my body, at that instant little more than an aching prison of flesh. Too much knowledge, too much pain. I was certain I was dying, and nothing, no one, could help. Please go away, I begged the voices, make it stop. Mother, Tucker, God, make the pain go away And the cold. I was shivering, my body felt as if it had no bones, the floor was so cold.

  Blood. The taste of blood will warm you.

  "No," I screamed at the voices. This is not real, a hallucination, I don't want blood. It must be a hallucination, I wouldn't let my mind do this. I told myself I wasn't, but I must be crazy.

  Eat, or you will die.

  "Go away," I screamed at myself, at the voices, "leave me in peace. "

  Eat or you will die. You must birth yourself.

  "The pain will kill me," I shouted, pounding my head, "let me die here. Please, God, let me die here in the arms of sanctity. "

  From the corner of my eye, I saw movement. It was a small animal, a rat, scurrying through the shadows. My hands lifted of their own will, pulsing with the light. The veins on the back of my hands had begun to recede into the flesh like parched stream beds and the skin was sallow, yellow, illuminated by the red and green kaleidoscope of moonlight streaming through the stained glass windows. Soft light mixed with the harsh primary colors of the Crucifixion of Christ, Mother Mary and the Magdalene cowering at the base of the wooden Cross.

  The tiny heartbeat of the animal filled my thoughts, I could feel it move. The will to survive eclipsed rational thought. In a flash, my now foreign hands darted forward and seized the rat. Brutishly I brought it to my mouth, unbelieving as it squirmed in panic inside my mouth. My teeth broke through the skin, crumbled the bone and I devoured it, tearing off its fur and sucking every last drop of blood from it.

  Good, the voices sang in harmony, you eat, and watch. Be inside the light, until you can bear the change.

  Again, I was pulled outside myself, witness to my own madness.

  The warm taste of copper flooded past my teeth, coating my mouth as I flicked my tongue across my fingers, licking up every drop. The blood melted into my flesh and my senses heightened to an unbearable pitch. Each drop slid down my throat, dripped into my belly and womb, coursing and mixing with my own blood. Such an insignificant little vessel of flesh and blood, and yet such profound events. What had I done? I wondered aloud. The voices shouted in my head with joy and wild abandon.

  The pain was gone. The light was gone. My body was quiet. I felt warm for the first time since escaping. My mind was once again my own. "Oh, Lord, my God, help me," I yelled out loud, falling prostrate on the marble, but there was nothing I could do except choke back a cry for Tucker.

  Again, the voices entered my mind. Beneath the church. Hide. Sleep. Be cautious and learn quickly. We will only be with you a short time.

  Like a zombie, I moved stiff-legged toward the door opening down into the catacombs. As I descended the worn steps, though, a fury began to consume me, fueled by the b
lood, anger at the God that Julius had described. Could that God be the same as mine, the same whose house I was in? How could I have been so blind? How could I have trusted, believed in a God who would so casually create a world pitting good against evil for His amusement? What other reason could there be? And so much heartache due to it. This was too much for me. I never considered myself smart, or religious, just a woman trying her best to keep cat food on the table and dress well. "I am not special," I screamed aloud inside my mind.

  "Mother, Mother," I cried, "you must have known. Why didn't you tell me?" If everything Julius had said was true, Mother must have known everything. Then I remembered and my shoulders sagged. She had told me. Just not all of it. The safe deposit box.

  The letters. She had made me promise not to read them until night became day. If I had only known, if I had only understood those strange words, I would have broken that promise in an instant. At the time, I thought she was going senile, but she must have known that if this day arrived, I would figure it out soon enough.

  That thought filled me with despair. Was her whole life then a lie? Had she made a deal with the devil, with Julius, to save herself by sacrificing me? Surely not. I had always felt such love from her, and care. There had to be more to it, things I didn't yet understand. That thought was strangely calming, ludicrous as it sounded. Something unknown that I could believe in, have faith in, unlike the God I now despised.

  No, none of this was real. I decided to rest there a moment or two. The sun did not frighten me. I would rest a few minutes, before the dawn. I was not afraid. I was convinced that I could walk into the light, and it would mean nothing to me. I had been brainwashed or drugged. Vampires were not real. The rat was madness. Madness was better than believing. Tomorrow, by the light of day, I would get the answers. Tomorrow I would get the safe deposit box.

  But even as this confidence flashed, a darkness was gathering in the coils of my mind. A darkness that deepened and embraced all but a pinpoint of light. In this light was the thought of Tucker. It was a pure thought of love and empathy. I felt a dread and

  horror as to what kind of death he might have experienced. "Please, make him be alive, make him come back to me. I need him," I prayed to a God I could no longer trust as I crawled into an ancient corner. God responded with a holy darkness and all was lost as death overtook me.